Plant community - what is it?

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extraordinarily diverse vegetation even a small plot of land.And you can see how the plants are very different from those forests that they live in the meadow or lake.Flora can coexist only with those species, which are willing to co-exist.That is the life of plants is possible when certain plant community has developed.

Concepts

To understand what a plant community, it is necessary to recall the requirements of different plant species to the conditions of growth and development.Each of them requires a certain humidity, lighting, temperature.On this basis, in the nature of individual plant species do not live in isolation from each other, and together, forming thickets called phytocenoses or plant communities.

So plant community - a set of plants that have adapted to the conditions of existence on the same plot of land established and linked mutual influence on each other.

more diverse species composition phytocenosis, the fuller use living space, its resources, the richer and more diverse are the relationship.For example, the forest gives the table and shelter many different animals, and they provide its stability that kill pests, spread seeds, loosen the soil.

All kinds of plant communities that live in a particular area, called vegetation.Depending on the prevalence of different types of plant communities are combined into larger groups (vegetation types).Each group got its name, for example, meadow, forest, swamp, steppe, tundra, and so on.All vegetation types have their own characteristic features, which are easy to distinguish from each other.

types of plant communities

As already mentioned, for phytocenosis characterized by a certain type of soil, light level, humidity and other conditions of existence of plants.This explains the diversity of plant communities and the specific composition of the flora for each of them.

When they say that the plant community - a forest, field, meadow, pond, virgin steppe, and so on. E., It is meant the conditions of existence of species.Sometimes

name phytocenoses give it the predominant species.For example, spruce, pine, birch, oak forest, or feather-grass steppe.Communities within the same type can vary in species composition, for example, there are fir grove or bilberry.

classify and determine the types of plant communities can be given the human influence on the formation of phytocenoses.Accordingly, the allocated natural and artificial plant communities.

All the flora of forests, meadows, wetlands, lakes, steppe, tundra constitute the natural plant communities.A direct impact on the formation of a person has not.

artificial plant communities created by man.They can be formed in the likeness of natural (eg, forest, pond, meadow) or have no analogues in nature (field, squares, parks).These plant communities due to some weaker species diversity of natural and can exist only when a person is caring for them.

Otherwise, there is a change of plant communities.Flora field may be pushed out of the forest plants.Such a process is possible, and in natural communities.So, lake, overgrown slowly turns into a swamp.

Keep in mind that different types of plant communities attract certain species of animals, bacteria and fungi.Together, they form a biocenosis.

meadows and steppes

the steppe dominated by herbaceous plants and melkokustarnikovye.Grasslands are characterized by a large variety of herbs, mostly perennial.The richest species composition have meadows, located in floodplains.As well as dry meadows, located away from the river, in the high places.

Forest

Multilevel plant community, the most difficult in species composition - a forest.It includes wood, shrubs and herbaceous plants.Forests are divided into deciduous and coniferous.Those, in turn, are divided into broad-leaved, dark and light coniferous.In addition, there are mixed forests, which presents both coniferous and deciduous trees.

Walking through the forest, we enter into the domain of a particular community.Good connoisseur of nature, an experienced collector of mushrooms and berries will follow the cranberries into a thicket of pine forest, behind a bouquet of flowers - in the glades and clearings, and for strawberries - in the sunny hills and the edge.How can coexist dissimilar plants?It is making it possible to co-exist?

plant community consists of many species of plants that are adapted to the same environment, but using it in different ways.After all, the requirements for light, moisture, temperature conditions have unequal.

For example, plants use light woods?In the uppermost tiers carried his crown photophilic oaks, ash, linden.In the second tier feel comfortable mountain ash, cherry, aspen.These trees are less demanding to light.Bushes have settled down in the third tier.And the most shade-tolerant, mosses and herbs placed in the fourth.

forest plant community has a unique component part, which is called the forest litter.Sometimes scientists reckon it to the fifth tier.Mushrooms - the main inhabitants of the litter.Together with the mushrooms have adapted to living in her small forest dwellers and bacteria.Feeding on dead parts of plants, they convert them into humus, and humus - in mineral salts, which are vital to new plants.

longline exists underground.Deep roots of the trees are gone.Slightly higher rooted shrubs near the surface - grass plants.Longline location of roots allows them to absorb nutrients from the different soil layers.

Seasonal principle of existence

coexist with each other in the forest not only allows tiered arrangement overground and underground parts of plants, but also their development in different terms.

first, before leafing, wind-pollinated blossom.While the tall trees had not yet blossomed, the wind transports pollen free.

Even snow does not come down, and the bottom of the warm litter have awakened insects.Now, when the bare branches of the forest passed down a lot of sunlight, blooming primroses and Entomophilous.

turned green shrubs and primroses yet over, accumulate in rhizomes nutrients.Their life is extinguished until the following spring.Their place is taken by other herbs.While in the forest a lot of light, ground cover becomes thicker, more varied actively in the process of photosynthesis.

Under-blown green tent when the weather gets warmer and the wind dies down, the plants bloom Entomophilous undergrowth.So consistently in the forest create the conditions necessary for the life of all its members.

Yelniki

Spruce forests usually grow in heavy clay soils.Fir needles, litter decomposes slowly.Accumulating over the years, it forms a bed which influences moisture, the soil temperature and some others its characteristics.The spruce forest a little light, and humid.Even on a hot summer day is cool.The grass cover is not rich species.Under the thick firs growing shade-loving oxalis, various species of moss, blueberries, cranberries.

Pine forests

forests where pine is the main representative, called the pine forests.They prefer light, sandy soil.Sunlight them enough, but because of the lack of nutrients variety of small plants.The soil is covered with mosses and lichens.Among them grow stone bramble, blueberries, cranberries, some species of ferns.Broad-leaved forests

plant community of deciduous forests, usually associated with soils rich in minerals.The species composition is diverse.Because trees can be seen oak, linden, elm, maple.From shrubs often comes hazel, honeysuckle wood and euonymus.Grassy cover rich in species: wild ginger, crow eyes, goutweed, several varieties of bells, anemones and many others.

Swamp

This community presents unique plant species that can exist in conditions of excessive soil moisture and lack of oxygen in it.In Russia, the most widely received swamp forest zone in the north and in the forest.

They are divided into lowland, which, in turn, are sedge and moss, and on horseback.Each of them has a characteristic composition of plant forms.

Lake

various plants of the lake, but live in the same environment.Only use it in different ways.

the shore where the shallow, settled cane, cattail, reeds.Their stems and leaves are placed over the water.They receive carbon dioxide from the air and a lot of light.Here are growing and the capsule.Their stems are rooted at the bottom, and endure long petioles leaves to the light.

But there are plants that do not rise to the surface.Nutrients are taken directly out of the water content and ambient light.The deeper, the less it.And changing the composition of the plant: higher plant is small, mainly inhabited by microscopic algae.

In nature, every plant community associated with the community of animals that inhabit the same area.That's a lot of sheltered coastal thickets inhabitants of the lake, as in shallow enough light, heat, food resources.

pond life would have been impossible without the activity of its inhabitants.They clean the lake, take part in the cycle of matter, in a word, their vital functions support the constancy of the environment.They are connected by the medium between them.In the current community to create the conditions necessary for the life of all its members.

Tundra

The special conditions are tundra plant communities.Here is a little heat, frequent high winds, permafrost.

in harsh conditions do not grow tall trees, but it does not mean that they are not in the tundra, but they are very small, stunted.Only here you can see the birch, which are higher than the birch.Or a tree on a par with berry bush cloudberries.

polar trees grow very slowly.Annual rings are distinguishable only with a magnifying glass, their width is estimated hundredths of a millimeter.

Different adapt tundra plants.For many typical growth pillows.This shape helps to resist hurricane winds.Inside the pillow retains heat better.Growing up in the tundra mosses and lichens, flowering shrubs, herbs.

Human impact on plant communities

formation of certain plant community takes more than one millennium., Folded, it can be stored for a long time until it will be broken relationship.

failure in the life of even a small area of ​​the forest can not pass unnoticed.For example, in the forest area of ​​the river it was a favorite destination of tourist halts.From the plurality of hearths were killed grassland and young forest growth.Shrub, protects slopes from landslides, cut down.Without the protection of the green, and the river began to dry up.

changes in the life of a plant community led to unwanted changes in the environment.

tundra residents are well aware of the laws of nature of the area.For example, driving reindeer herds from place to place, they keep vegetation.After Yagelnaya pasture eaten by deer, restored in 15-20 years.A layer of soil thaws in summer, it is very small, at the bottom - the permafrost and vegetation cover is thin.

Nature tundra extremely vulnerable.And every bruise inflicted here vegetation, heal long.

Any activity of people on earth can not affect plant life.And if a man knows what the plant community, what laws it develops, it will act carefully and prudently.